#122 — How to Win More Business, Make More Friends, and Get More Money, aka: How to Listen Better

What happens when we listen fully? Without interjecting with our own opinions or experiences? Without asserting a best possible outcome or stating facts to support a specific viewpoint?

How often do you leave a conversation—with a friend or colleague—and think to yourself, “They just don’t get what I mean/how I feel/how complicated this is.”

How often do you catch yourself offering advice or trying to fix a problem for a friend before you realize they really just want a safe space and a friendly ear to empathize and process with them?

Sarah digs into these overlapping experiences and asks the big question, “How can we create space in our personal and professional conversations to allow for real connection, true empathy, and beautifully nuanced understanding of one another?"

Today we’re talking about how deep listening and thoughtful questioning lend themselves to much more open, nuanced, thoughtful conversations and relationships. Sarah is going to share the incredibly simple and astonishingly powerful tool she uses in her personal and professional life to connect more deeply with people, to grow her business, and to be of the deepest service to her clients, friends, and mastermind groups. 

• How we tend to believe we know what’s best for others based on our own experiences, information, and desires.
• How quickly we lose sight of the true goal of conversation—connection—and instead move into problem solving, telling our own stories, or moving on to the next point.
• Sarah’s experience in her second birth of hiring and then ultimately choosing not to work with a doula who, rather than listening to Sarah and Alex’s preferences and desires, attempted to “educate” them into choosing a different path.
• The delicate and crucial difference between presenting useful information so someone can make a thoughtful decision for themselves and believing that someone “ought” to choose a specific choice due to the information you have.
• The profound power of a woman’s birth story and her decision to experience a pain-free birth.
• Why we strive at Startup Pregnant to present a wide range of experiences of pregnancy, parenthood, and work and why we always begin those stories with “in my experience.”
• The not-so-secret reason that coaching and therapy are so highly in need in our current culture.
• The super simple, incredibly effective tool Sarah uses in her life, masterminds, and with her corporate clients to build relationships and close deals.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/122.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• startuppregnant.com/ask
• startuppregnant.com/courses